The
early 1900s was a period of tumult for Ireland.
The nationalist movement was gaining momentum backed by the guerilla warfare tactics of the newly-formed I.R.A.

Strength,
toughness, and street smarts were useful to the Irish rebel leaders, including the renowned real-life rebel, Michael Collins.

And
there in their midst was a young lad from Glasgow, James Crossan, about to be swept up by those storms of fate…

1914-Scotland

Hellraiser
- "Paddy" Patrick Crossan

World
War I - Sir George McCrae's Battalion or "McCrae's Own" or, locally, as Hearts Battalion". The entire Heart of Midlothian first team joined up in November 1914. Hearts were top of the Scottish Football League at
the time.

"No
club sacrificed more in the First World Warthan Heart of Midlothian. Sixteen players from the club joined up, most of them enlisting
in the 16th Battalion of Royal Scots, the oldest infantry regiment in the army and nicknamed 'Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard'.

Seven
members of the first team were killed in action. The battalion suffered 229 casualties on the first day of the battle of the
Somme with another 347 wounded. That the 16th Royal Scots made greater inroads into the German
line than any other battalion that day seems a paltry consolation.

Crossan
was gassed and never recovered his health before his death in 1933.They had
put themselves into a position of winning the league title, yet many were asking why play football when your countrymenare dying a few miles away just over the channel?"

1941
- Clydebank, GlasgowScotland

Rosemary
Crossan

World War 2- On March 13, 1941, Clydebank was attacked by over 200 German bombers (Luftwaffe).As the bombs dropped, all hell broke loose…the planes kept coming and the whistling
of the bombs unending.Rosemary was too numb to believe what she was seeing and
experiencing.Her thoughts kept asking, "where are they, my mother and father,
my brothers, are they alive or dead?" The night was about to get worse as wave after wave of bombers flew overhead…